Penn investigating mass emails sent from University accounts in apparent security breach The Daily Pennsylvanian

pPenn appears to have experienced a cybersecurity breach on Friday after a series of mass emails were sent to students faculty alumni and parents from accounts linked to the Graduate School of EducationppThe messages sent from multiple Universityaffiliated email addresses were addressed to the Penn community and contained criticisms of the Universitys security practices and institutional purpose according to copies of the messages reviewed by The Daily Pennsylvanian Penns Information Systems Computing office wrote in a statement that it is working with our campus partners to resolve the issueppWe hire and admit morons because we love legacies donors and unqualified affirmative action admits the email which contains profane language and a slur read in partppIn an email to the Penn GSE community a spokesperson for the school described the emails as highly offensive adding that they are in no way reflective of Penn or Penn GSEs mission or actionsppPlease know that we are actively and quickly investigating and taking immediate steps to stop these emails from being sent the spokesperson wrote Our IT team at Penn GSE and the Universitys IT team and Crisis Response Teams are working as quickly as they canppA University spokesperson wrote that the emails were obviously a fake in a statement to the DP The spokesperson reiterated that the Universitys Office of Information Security is actively addressing the situationppAll of the emails are incredibly offensive and in no way reflective of Penn or Penn GSEs mission or values We sincerely apologize for the harm this has caused and is causing a message to the Penn community read Over and above the inconvenience of getting your inboxes spammed these emails are hurtful and upsettingppIn an message sent to members of Penns Annenberg School for Communication Elizabeth Cooper the schools IT help desk manager addressed the offensive emails and emphasized that ASC has not been hackedppRELATEDppPenn GSE Dean Katharine Strunk discusses research training collaboration with Phila public schoolsppPenn GSE receives 1 million donation from Google to expand AI in education initiativeppppppThese emails are being received by individuals outside of UPenn as well Cooper wrote It appears that some email list which is beyond our control was accessed by malicious individuals who then sent out these messagesppShe added that At this time there is nothing for us to do but we wanted to keep you informedppA message from Penn Medicine Academic Computing Services also acknowledged the emails writing that the University and Penn Med are taking steps to resolve the issue and block further emailsppIf you receive an email please mark it as phishingspam and avoid clicking on any links or attachments the email addedppThe School of Nursings IT services similarly acknowledged the emails in an Oct 31 message adding that the security team is actively working to block and prevent any further messages from being sentppRELATEDppPenn GSE Dean Katharine Strunk discusses research training collaboration with Phila public schoolsppPenn GSE receives 1 million donation from Google to expand AI in education initiativeppppppFinn Ryan is a News Editor at The Daily Pennsylvanian and can be reached at ryanthedpcom At Penn he studies English and political science Follow him on X FinnRyanppThe Daily Pennsylvanian is an independent studentrun newspaper Please consider making a donation to support the coverage that shapes the University Your generosity ensures a future of strong journalism at Pennp